OCR Text |
Show 110 PROF. A. H. GARROD ON THE [Feb. 4, morphae," Professor Huxley describes in detail the skeleton of Opisthocomus, concluding, as the result of his study of the bird, that it should constitute a group (the Heteromorphae) by itself, which sprang direct from the main stem of Carinate descent, later than the Tinamomorphae, Turnicomorphae and Charadriomorphae, but before the Gallinaceous birds, Sand-Grouse, and Pigeons were developed. Since then, in our ' Transactions ", Mr. J. B. Perrin has published a myological account of the species, in which he, however, compares it with few other birds. One of M r . Perrin's figures2 very excellently represents the form and situation of the immense crop, as Fig. 1. Trachea of Opisthocomus (front view). well as the situation, in the unfleshed bird, of the expanded margin of the short carina sterni, from which an accidental error made by Nitzsch, w ho evidently had an imperfect skin to work upon, may be corrected. Nitzsch, in his « Pterylography,' figures (and the 1 Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. ix. p. 353. 2 Loc. cit. pi. lxiii. fig. 3. |